


when you smile you knock me out, i fall apart

by amazingsantiago



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 15:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14897195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingsantiago/pseuds/amazingsantiago
Summary: It doesn't take much to freak Jake out about being a dad. Charles, Terry and Amy try to comfort him, but in the end there's only one person that can really erase his fears.





	when you smile you knock me out, i fall apart

It doesn’t take much to freak Jake out about fatherhood.

 

He had a full-on panic attack when Amy showed him the plastic stick that changed their lives and another when he felt the baby kick for the first time, the sudden realisation that a living, breathing,  _ kicking _ human being would soon be outside of his wife stealing the air out of his lungs.

 

He was excited about the baby being born,  _ obviously _ , but it also, like, really worried him. He didn’t really have a dad growing up, had no father figure to look up to, so when they found out they were expecting, he realised he had no idea how to look after a kid.

 

For the majority of her pregnancy, Amy had managed to distract him of these (what she called) irrational fears by buying him adorable baby clothes adorned in slogans like “My Daddy’s the Best”, re-watching  _ Diehard _ with him (and pretending to consider his idea to name the baby Nakatomi) and the most effective distraction: sex.

 

However, with her due date only a few days away and Amy at home on bed rest, she isn’t around to calm him down when he has his biggest “ _ oh my God I don’t know how to be a dad I’m going to be terrible at this and the baby’s going to hate me _ ” breakdown at work. 

 

It starts when he bumps into Officer Alvarado on the third floor when he’s picking up Amy’s glasses that she left on her desk. 

 

“Detective Peralta! How’s the Sarge doing?”

 

Jake’s lips twitch into a smile. “She’s great. She’s exhausted, and huge, and frustrated because she wants to meet the baby  _ now _ ,” he mimics Amy’s voice, “but she’s great.”

 

“Glad to hear it. We’re all so excited for her.”

 

“I’ll make sure to tell her that,” Jake responds. She’d tried so hard to be a good boss and get her officers to respect her and he thinks it would probably cheer his nine month pregnant wife up a great deal if she knew they were all thinking of her. 

 

“And what about you? Are you ready to be a dad?”

 

Jake freezes, his airways suddenly tight. “Me? A d-dad?”

 

“Uh, yeah. That’s typically what happens when you have a baby - you become a dad,” she says, raising her eyebrows as Jake wipes away a pool of sweat from his forehead and loosens the tie from around his neck. “Are you OK, Detective?”

 

“Y-yeah, absolutely f-fine,” he stammers, his heart pounding in his chest. “I’ve gotta g-go.”

 

He rushes out of the bullpen and into the stairwell, sitting on the bottom step and curling his legs up to his chest. His breathing becomes more ragged and he feels like he might throw up. He grabs his phone out his pocket and texts Charles to _get down here_ _STAT_ and bring Terry with him. He tries to steady his breathing as he waits, but it just seems to make everything worse so he lets the panic course through his veins. 

 

_ You’re going to be a terrible father.  _

 

_ You needn’t worry about abandoning the baby because the baby will abandon you when they realise how crappy a parent you are.  _

 

_ Amy will hate you when she realises how-. _

 

“Jake?”

 

His horrible thoughts are interrupted by Charles’ voice as his best friend joins him on the bottom step. “Charles-,” Jake croaks, his vision blurred with tears.

 

“What’s going on, bud?”

 

“I’m going to be a d-dad.”

 

“I know, I’ve been counting down since the second you told me you knocked Amy up,” Charles replies. “Three more sleeps to go!”

 

“Don’t-,” Jake whimpers. “I’m going to be a failure.”

 

Charles gasps. “You have  _ never _ failed at anything in your life, Jacob Peralta. You are a perfect cop, a perfect best friend, a perfect husband and you will be a perfect daddy to America’s Dream Baby.”

 

“How do you know? My slutty pilot dad was never there for me. I don’t even know what a dad does!”

 

“Yes, you do. You’ve seen movies and been around me, and Terry, and Amy’s brothers. And you’re  _ great _ with kids - they all love you.”

 

“But they’ve always gone home to their parents. I’ve never been responsible for a tiny human 24/7,” he frets. “What if Amy leaves me alone with the baby and it straight up  _ dies _ ?”

 

“Jakey, that’s the fear talking. You will not kill your child.”

 

“How do you know? I’m  _ hopeless _ ! I’ve only just learnt how to scramble eggs.”

 

“I can teach you to cook if that’s what you’re worried about,” Charles offers. “I’ve only been waiting for you to ask for eleven years.”

 

“It’s not just the cooking-.” He lets out a shallow breath, rubbing his hand over his face. “I’m scared of everything, Boyle.”

 

“I was terrified before the twins were born,” comes Terry’s calm voice from behind them. 

 

Jake sobs in relief; Terry will help. 

 

“How did you get over it?” Boyle prompts, knowing Jake can barely talk right now. 

 

“I didn’t - not until the midwife placed those beautiful baby girls in my arms,” he responds, a smile growing on his face. “Once I was holding them and I could see their adorable little faces, it hit me. It hit me that I was their daddy and I would  _ never _ do wrong by them.”

 

“What if it doesn’t hit me?”

 

“It will,” Terry promises. “You will feel love stronger than anything you’ve ever felt before and you will instinctively know what to do. Trust me.”

 

Jake nods his head a little, the adrenaline fading away. 

 

“And everything else - the practical stuff like diaper changes and nighttime feeds and how to fold the stroller so it fits in the car - that gets easier with time.”

 

“Ames has already had me practising diaper changes on a football,” he confesses, an amused smile on his face. 

 

“Exactly. How can you be worried when your wife is the most organised human on Earth?”

 

Jake laughs, thinking of all the pregnancy- and baby-related binders in the nursery next to their bedroom. Their friends have no idea how Type A she can be in the privacy of her own home. 

 

“It’s nearly five. Go home to her, Jake. You’ll feel so much better talking about this with Amy.”

 

“But Captain Holt-.”

 

“I’ll deal with him. Go home, Peralta,” Terry insists. 

 

“OK. OK, I’m going.” He hugs them both tightly and splashes his face with water in the third floor bathroom so Amy won’t know he’s been crying, ignoring the glares that the annoyed uniform officers send his way. He picks up his satchel from his desk and then drives home as fast as he can, desperate to be in Amy’s comforting presence. 

 

Once his car is parked, he sprints up the stairs to their apartment. He unlocks the door and enters their home, greeted by the muffled sound of Amy singing along to  _ Hamilton _ . 

 

Jake follows the music to the nursery and leans against the doorframe, grinning as he watches her dance to  _ Schuyler Sisters  _ while folding the new baby clothes they’d been given at her shower. 

 

“Hey,” he murmurs as the song finishes, apologising when he makes her jump. 

 

“How long have you been stood there?” She asks, her cheeks flushing pink. 

 

“A few minutes. You looked like you were enjoying yourself and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

 

“I would have enjoyed myself a whole lot more if you were dancing along with me,” she says, putting down the laundry and pressing a chaste kiss to her husband’s lips. 

 

“You have got so corny since we got engaged,” he teases. “I never would have proposed if I knew what you’d become.”

 

She rolls her eyes and swats his chest playfully. “How was work?”

 

“I’ve got your glasses in my bag,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the hall. 

 

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Amy points out, knitting her brow together. “Is everything OK?”

 

“Damn, you know me too well. You should sit down, Ames. You’re supposed to be resting, remember.”

 

“I’m more concerned about you than resting right now,” she replies, sitting down on the recliner anyway, her left hand caressing her large bump. He kneels in front of her, kind of like a puppy dog, and her other hand plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. “What happened at work? You’re not injured, are you?”

 

He rests his hand on her bouncing knee as her eyes flit up and down, assessing him for any sign of stab wounds or bleeding. “I’m not injured. I  _ did _ , however, have a major breakdown in the stairwell on the third floor.”

 

She would normally make a teasing comment about how much he clearly missed her (which he did - A Lot) and he loves her even more for reading his face and knowing it’s not the right time for flirty banter. Instead, she bites her lip and whispers, “a breakdown about being a dad?”

 

“Yeah,” he responds in an equally hushed tone, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears from falling again. Amy covers his hand with hers and places them both on her bump, letting him feel their baby move, and tears roll down his cheeks anyway. 

 

“Our baby loves you more than anything, Jake, and they can’t wait to meet you.”

 

“I can’t wait to meet them either, Ames, but-.” He takes a shuddering breath, tripping over the words that follow. “ _ WhatifI’mjustlikemydad _ ?”

 

“Babe-.”

 

“I know you love me and I know you don’t think I’m anything like him, but we  _ are _ related. What if it’s in our DNA to be crappy dads?” 

 

“Jake-.”

 

“I’m terrified. I’m absolutely terrified because I’ve always wanted to be a dad and now here we are - in our little one’s nursery, waiting for them to pop out and join the good thing we’ve got going here - and I just don’t want to let you or the baby down. Because,  _ God _ , Ames, you’re already the perfect mother and I’m so scared that I can’t do this-.”

 

“ _ Peralta _ ,” she says firmly, snapping him out of the spiral he’d worked himself into. “Just stop talking for, like, two minutes and listen to me.”

 

The baby kicks as if to say “ _ yeah, dad, shut the hell up _ ” and they both laugh through their tears. (Because Amy’s literally about to pop and ridiculously hormonal, of course she started crying the moment Jake did). 

 

“Look at this incredible nursery we’re in right now, with the crib you assembled and the animal illustrations you hung on the wall and the closet full of tiny Nets jerseys you bought the day after our first ultrasound. I spoke to your mom last night and guess what? Your dad didn’t do any of them things when she was pregnant.”

 

Jake swallows the lump in his throat.

 

“You know how certain you are that I’m going to be a good mom?” 

 

He nods. 

 

“That’s how certain I am that you’re going to be the best daddy ever. I have so much faith in you, Jake. We all do. Me, our baby, your mom, my family,  _ Charles _ . I know he probably said as much when you spoke to him about this earlier.”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“I know you, Jacob Peralta. You probably spoke to Terry as well, right?”

 

“Yep,” he says, shaking his head in amazement. 

 

“And what did Terry tell you?”

 

“That he was terrified, too, but it all disappeared when he held Cagney and Lacey for the first time. But what if that doesn’t happen for me?”

 

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon.”

 

“I guess so.” He smiles softly. 

 

“No, Jake-.” She grits her teeth, a wave of excruciating pain coursing through her body. “We’ll find out really soon. I think the contractions have just started.”

 

“WHAT?” 

 

(Exactly twenty-four hours later, Amy is squeezing Jake’s hand to the point where he thinks his bones might break as she pushes and pushes and pushes until finally - finally - they hear a piercing cry and  _ oh my God their baby is out  _ and Jake’s sobbing and Amy won’t let go of him and the midwife is assuring them that they have a perfectly healthy baby girl and Jake is pretty sure his heart stops when the midwife places her on Amy’s chest because he has a daughter. A  _ daughter _ . 

 

And it’s like everything in the universe finally makes sense. 

 

Amy is murmuring “ _ I love you so much _ ” over and over and over and their baby opens her eyes for a millisecond as if to say “ _ love you, too, mom _ ”, which triggers a fresh round of tears from both Jake and Amy. 

 

Jake can’t say anything, can’t stop staring at her scrunched up face and ten tiny fingers and- “Oh my God, Ames, I think she has my nose.”

 

“She looks just like her daddy,” the midwife agrees. “Speaking of, would you like to cut the cord, dad?”

 

Jake nods weakly, taking the scissors from the midwife and the cutting where she indicates. He immediately goes back to staring at her, his daughter, and gently strokes a finger over her dark head of hair. 

 

“That’s a Santiago thing,” Amy murmurs and his eyes leave his daughter for a second to look at his wife who still looks gorgeous after a full day of labour. “All Santiagos are born with a lot of hair. She’s the perfect mix of both of us.”

 

“She’s definitely perfect, that’s for sure,” Jake responds, kissing Amy’s forehead. “I love you both so much.”

 

“Do you want to hold her?”

 

Jake’s pupils dilate, panic settling in his stomach. _ What if she hates him and their calm little baby starts screaming her head off? What if he drops her? _ “I can’t-.”

 

“You can,” Amy insists, gently placing her in his arms. 

 

“She’s so tiny,” he whispers, choking up as she snuggles into his chest and he suddenly understands exactly what Terry was saying. He’s her daddy and he loves her so much and he never wants to let her go. He’s not scared anymore. Not at all. He just feels happier than he’s ever felt in his entire life.

 

The midwife eventually pries their daughter away from him to be cleaned up and measured and whatever else they have to do (he did read it in one of Amy’s many pregnancy-related books, but his superhero wife has just given birth to their baby so excuse him if he can’t remember everything). 

 

A few hours later, after the grandparents have visited and coddled over baby Maya Peralta, the Nine-Nine peak their heads around the door and Charles immediately bursts into tears. 

 

“She’s even better than I imagined,” he sobs loudly, waking Maya up. 

 

Amy glares at him until he shuts up, her gaze softening as she kisses her daughter and rocks her gently until she falls back asleep. It doesn’t take long. The newest addition to the Nine-Nine family is very sleepy; she’s had a big day after all. 

 

Rosa congratulates them, Captain Holt tells Amy he’s proud of her and Gina offers to pierce their baby’s ears. Amy recoils in horror and Jake promises her that Gina’s just joking. Jake glances up from his little family, his entire world, to see Terry smiling knowingly at him. 

 

“You were right,” he says quietly so only Terry and Amy hear and he looks back down at his baby girl. He’s not at all scared of fatherhood anymore.)


End file.
